Sesquicentennially speaking, Oregon has nothing on this family

Text Size: A | A | A

Print this Article Email this Article

April 05, 2009

By Paul Fattig

Mail Tribune

When it comes to a sesquicentennial, Oregon is a bit of a late comer, as far as Eunice Charley Richardson is concerned.

No, she is not 150 years old, although she is more than halfway there, having turned 80 on Friday.

"But my great grandparents were married in Sterlingville in 1857, two years before Oregon became a state," says the Medford resident. "And my grandmother was born in Sterlingville in 1858."

That would be great-grandparents Martin and Margaret Simpson Hurst, married in the long-defunct mining town of Sterlingville in the Little Applegate River watershed on Feb. 12, 1857. Her grandmother Mary Hurst was born there a year later, followed by her great aunt Sally Hurst, arriving in 1859.

Oregon didn't become a state until Feb. 14, 1859, some three years after Martin Hurst had arrived in the territory.

You don't need a graduate degree in genealogy to climb her family tree, but it wouldn't hurt: they have lived in the Rogue Valley for eight generations, resulting in hundreds of relatives in the area.

Her paternal great grandfather, William Charley, who once owned the historic Waverly Cottage in Medford, was a bugler in the Civil War.

"For the Union side, of course," she notes.

He would marry Andromeda "Meda" Hurst, Martin Hurst's sister.

"When papa would kill a cougar, she used to tan cougar hides and make gloves out of them," Richardson says.

Her parents were Walter and Bertha Charley, who had a dozen children, although one was stillborn and another lived only 18 months.

Eunice, the next to the youngest, takes a moment to think before listing them.

"Garrel was the oldest, then Boyden, Lincoln, Clinton, Opal, Clarabel, Ruby, Wesley, me and Rosa Lee, the baby," she says. "There was 20 years from Garrel to Rosa Lee."

Only the five youngest girls are left, says Eunice who, with her husband, Frank Richardson Jr., has been married for 62 years. They married for keeps in those days.

Garrel was born in Kerby in 1912 where their father operated a sawmill. Boyd was born in Waverly Cottage. Two other brothers were born at Lake Creek.

And the rest, including Eunice, were born in Climax, once a thriving community in the upper Antelope Valley just north of Grizzly Peak. Her mother was a school teacher at Climax, as well as the post mistress, serving from 1920 until 1933, when the post office closed.

The interesting name, according to Bertha Charley in a letter to the Oregon Geographic Names book authors, was at the urging of local resident John Wyland, who successfully petitioned for the establishment of the post office in 1891.

"It seems that the word 'climax' was a favorite of this man who stated that 'the climax of his efforts was a tee-total landslide," she wrote, adding that he suggested the post office be named Climax.

Although young when the family left Climax, Eunice recalls they had a ranch there.

"We had an orchard there and the bears kept coming in and breaking the limbs off," she says. "So our folks called it the Bear Ranch."

Early-day humor helped round off the rough edges.

"My mother said there was once about 350 people living up there," she says, adding that one family had a bath tub fashioned from a log. "It was hollowed out and painted white. They used that for years."

She has a photograph of a 1927 Studebaker the family drove in Climax.

"The car had a full size front seat and a full size back seat," she says. "In between were two little jump seats which folded down. We kids always argued about who got to sit in the jump seats."

She stopped talking for a moment, laughing about the memories.

"I remember right where it died," she continues. "It died on South Shasta Street in Eagle Point."

Looking back, she says her parents did a great job of raising them.

"We all learned how to work," she says. "None of us were ever in prison or arrested for anything. They were all good people who helped each other."

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.

Print this Article Email this Article